The disclosed embodiments of the present invention relate to data compression and decompression, and more particularly, to a method and apparatus for performing block prediction search based on restored sample values derived from stored sample values in a data buffer.
A display interface may be disposed between an application processor (AP) and a driver integrated circuit (IC) to transmit display data from the AP to the driver IC for further processing. When a display panel supports a higher display resolution, 2D/3D display with higher resolution can be realized. Hence, the display data transmitted over the display interface would have a larger data size/data rate, which increases the power consumption of the display interface inevitably. If the AP and the driver IC are both located at a portable device (e.g., a smartphone) powered by a battery device, the battery life is shortened due to the increased power consumption of the display interface.
Similarly, a camera interface may be disposed between a camera module and an image signal processor (ISP) to transmit multimedia data from the camera module to the ISP for further processing. The ISP may be part of an application processor. When a camera sensor with a higher resolution is employed in the camera module, the multimedia data transmitted over the camera interface would have a larger data size/data rate, which increases the power consumption of the camera interface inevitably. Similarly, if the camera module and the ISP are both located at a portable device (e.g., a smartphone) powered by a battery device, the battery life is shortened due to the increased power consumption of the camera interface.
Data compression may be employed to reduce the data size/data rate of data transmitted over a transmission interface, such as the display interface or the camera interface. In a conventional design, the pixel data used for block prediction may be stored in different line buffers with different line buffer bit depth settings, which results in a higher production cost. Thus, there is a need for an innovative design which can achieve the desired data compression/decompression through using pixel data in a shared data buffer, thereby reducing the hardware cost.